Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Navigating the Silence


As I've mentioned before, silence is something I'm unsure about. Instead of continuing to fear the silence, I decided to embrace it - as best I could. It can be challenging to even find a place that is quiet enough to gather your thoughts. As I'm typing this, car horns are blaring, semi trucks are rumbling by, the water fountain is growling in the hallway...You get the point. We live in a world that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year without stopping. Something is constantly making noise - be it leaves rustling in a gentle breeze or the sound of giant construction vehicles rumbling about at all hours of the day and night (trust me, some nights they never stop). There is always noise, and the noise can be deafening. It seems there is no place for silence.

Silence, as a spiritual practice, is as much about what you are tuning into as it is about tuning out. Setting out on my journey of silence, I realized that really there was no place in my immediate world that I would find absolute silence. I work and live near a busy city intersection where a massive construction project is underway. Absolute silence is just not going to happen. Instead of stepping out of the sounds of my environment, I thought about what "noise" I was adding to my life. From social media to news radio, blogs to music, text messages to just the thoughts in my own head - my life was full of noise that I was adding to it.
The first step to experiencing silence for me was to take a step away from all of the noise I was filling my mind with. This past week, I spent a lot of time in silence. I spent hours of time in silence. I turned off the news radio, resisted the urge to turn on some music, and sat in silence. I set down the phone, turned off the computer, and stopped incessantly feeding the need to check social media.

At first, the silence felt ominous. It felt lonely and somewhat boring. It didn't take long for me to realize that silence for sake of silence is not the point of the practice. It's something more. It's tuning out the distractions that I was feeding my mind, and tuning into the Word of the Lord. Once I understood that, the silence didn't seem so lonely. I didn't feel out of place or lost. As I focused on Scripture, I began to realize that the sounds of my environment were no longer distractions when I put my focus in the right places. I became more productive. I stopped feeling like I was constantly being bombarded with noise. I could breathe. I didn't feel overwhelmed. I felt peace - even when I was busy.

Do I still listen to music or the radio? Yes. Do I still look at my phone a little more than I should? Probably. There's nothing inherently wrong with being plugged in and being connected, but there's nothing wrong with stepping back, taking a deep breath, turning off the noise, and tuning into the One who created you.


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